DEERFIELD OFFICIALS MAY OK ROAD PLAN THIS TIME

History seems unlikely to repeat itself when the City Commission on Tuesday considers a plan to build a road to improve access to Hillsboro Boulevard from Southeast 19th Avenue.

In 1982, commissioners, facing mounting public opposition to the planned road and looming city elections, withdrew from a state Department of Transportation plan to build the diverter road.

This time, commissioners say, they expect to support the plan, which they claim has drawn fewer and less vocal protests from residents living near the route of the proposed road.

Mayor Jean Robb said, "I don't think the votes are there to kill this road again."

Despite that possibility, some residents, particularly those in the Penthouse North condominium development, 101 NE 19th Ave., who led the 1982 protests, again are stirring opposition to the plan, criticizing it at commission meetings and circulating petitions against it.

Earl Grout, Penthouse North Association president, said 300 to 400 residents from the development and from others nearby had signed petitions against the road.

Grout said he met with City Manager J. Eldon Mariott to discuss details of the plan and offer alternatives.

Officials say the road would improve access to westbound Hillsboro Boulevard from Southeast 19th Avenue, eliminating the need to make a left-hand turn against eastbound traffic on Hillsboro. It would link Southeast 19th Avenue and Northeast 19th Avenue, running under the Hillsboro Boulevard bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway.

Mariott and Bill Walsh, district traffic operations engineer for the transportation agency, reached an agreement in which the city would pay slightly less than half the cost of the road. The total cost of the road is estimated to be between $67,000 and $74,000.

Under the agreement, the plan must receive commission approval and a guarantee from Walsh that the transportation agency will have the money available for its share of the project.

Grout said that regardless of how much the diverter road improves traffic flow on Hillsboro Boulevard, it would create more problems than it solves for residents living on 19th Avenue both north and south of Hillsboro Boulevard.